Crimson 11
by DarkXVulcanJediKnightofEregion
Summary: Keath's back with the crew of the Crimson Assurance in tow, & this time, Spock's not the only one along for the ride.  YOU MUST READ FLIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ASSURANCE FOR THIS TO MAKE SENSE!
1. Chapter 1

Crimson 11

**DISCLAIMER**: All Star Trek characters, locations, technology, ship designs, designations, races, dates, histories, and paraphernalia are property of Gene Roddenbury and do not belong to myself. The basic plot and shamelessly borrowed title are from a tremendously fun movie that is also not mine. The Crimson Assurance, her crew, and their respective backgrounds, are my intellectual property and anyone who tries to steal my ideas without my permission will answer to Major Harper's Schnaurs.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**: This fanfic is a sequel to my prior work "The Flight of the Crimson Assurance" which _**!!!MUST!!!**_be read for any of this to make any sense at all (this story can be found under my personal page. So go and click my name link, scroll down to read "Flight" and then you can come back here for "11"). Again, I am writing this in first person narrative, so all **bold** writing goes on in third person, outside the main character's perspective. _Italics_ denote thoughts, and regular print is the Protagonist's viewpoint.

**Prologue**

"**You sure that this'll work, Spock?"**

"**These are the directions I was given if I ever needed to make contact again, Captain."**

"**But will it work?"**

"**I cannot know for certain until contact is established."**

"**Could you at least guess? 'Cause we really can't afford to be wrong."**

"**We have even odds of either succeeding or failing in this endeavor as contact will be established or it won't. There is no middle ground."**

"**But Jupiter? It just seems so…illogical."**

"**I have long learned, sir, that pirates are rarely logical."**

**Chapter 1  
The Backdrop **

"So you begging for a partner, Keath, or did he already leave?" I looked up from the table I was sitting at to the large form of my CMO.

"Neither, I just like to win," I replied, grinning. I pushed aside the 3-D chess set and gestured to the chair opposite me. "You wanna sit, Doc?" Carpenter slid in and casually fingered one of the black rooks.

"'You just like to win'?" He picked the rook up and looked at carefully. "You do understand that you're also going to lose this game as well, right?"

"Well, now that's an interesting metaphysical question, Doc."

"Has psychological implications too." Carpenter grinned almost maliciously. "Maybe I should bump up your next psyche exam."

"Now, hold up, that ain't exactly fair," I said, leaning back in my chair and trying to distance myself from the incriminating evidence. "'Sjust a game and besides, I'm a pirate."

"Yeah, so?"

"Doc, we don't even HAVE psyche evaluations." Carpenter chuckled and put the rook back.

"It was worth a shot."

"So, you here for a reason other than making mischief?" The doctor was about to answer when the com unit interrupted with it's annoying little beep.

"Major Harper?" I half jumped over to the wall. It was Hannah, the Assurance's communications officer, and, from the tone of her voice, she sounded…disturbed.

"Keath here, what's up Hannah?"

"Ma'am, I'm getting a really…weird signal over our emergency frequency. You might want to come up here." I glanced over at Carpenter who was intently following the conversation.

"Right, on my way." I nodded at the doctor and we headed for the turbolift.

DXVJKE

The turbolift doors opened onto my bridge. Duo, Pilot, and Gunner were on deck along with the little lady ruining my discussion on the philosophical implications of playing chess against one's self. "Okay, Hannah, what's this signal that's got you riled up?" The redhead snapped around, low levels of ire in her eyes.

"Not riled, ma'am, confused. Big difference." I grinned, Hannah had a certain way of…expressing herself. "As for the signal, well…listen." She reached over and touched the volume control for the bridge, transferring the signal she was hearing on her headset to the more general public.

What flooded over the radio was a piece of music. Classical music. Specifically, it was "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" from Holst's The Planet Opus. It was at the beginning of the second movement, some three and a half minutes into the piece: the majestic strains of viola and clarinet, the deep bass of the oboe and cello, the soaring flute and violin, they blended and intertwined into one of the richest pieces of music ever penned by man. Damn, I loved it. It was like…air, like swimming in air, like flying, like breathing in water; it was paralyzing and invigorating at the same time. And I stood there, eyes closed, drinking in Jupiter for nearly a minute, feeling a smile slowly creeping across my face.

"I know that smile, Keath," Carpenter said, his bass voice blending in with Holst's enough to break into my mind. My eyes slit open and the smile widened to a grin.

"Hannah, this is coming over frequency gamma-117, right?" The com officer looked up sharply at me and then nodded.

"Keath?" the doctor asked. "What's going on?"

"Excellent. Pilot," I said, turning to the front of the bridge still ignoring the now annoyed doctor, "Set a course for…38617-mark-02…4."

"You haven't given me an answer."

"Course's laid in, boss," Pilot replied.

"Then get us there and don't spare the horses," I said, moving towards my chair.

"You got it," she turned to her brother and exchanged looks of utter mischief known only between siblings.

"Keath." The doctor put himself right in my path with a stern glance that said he wasn't about to move until I gave answers. "Where. Are. We. Going?" I looked up at him and grinned.

"Why, to see an old friend, of course."

DXVJKE

"Far be it from me to question the thinking of the great boss lady herself, but how the hell do we get a rendezvous with Fed ship from some piece of classical music on a subspace channel?" We were sitting, cloaked, some two million leagues away from the vessel in question, still listening to Jupiter being played. The senior crew had taken their stations a few moments after I had altered our course and then had to sit through some eight repetitions of Holst's work during our travel time. I had kept tightlipped over exactly who we were meeting, prompting the above quip from my chief engineer.

"First of all, Duo, it's not just any ship, it's the Enterprise." That caused quite a stir.

"The Enter… We're going to see Saul?" The look on Duo's face could only be described as excitement, a look that was mirrored on most of the crew's faces; excepting André's, of course, as the Titan rarely smiled let alone looked excited.

"That's what I'm hoping for, yeah."

"But how could you tell all that from a piece of early 20th century Earth music?" Katra asked, finally raising the question that I know had been on everyone's mind since Hannah first picked up the transmission.

"I told Saul that if he ever needed to contact me, this was the way to do it."

"But how can you be certain?" the young man pressed.

"Kat, think. How many sentient beings do you know would be willing to play the same piece of human music CONTINEOUSLY for an hour and a half?"

"It does sound rather singular, major," he replied.

"Damn straight." I settled back in my chair. "Hannah, open up a channel; let's see how our friend's doing now that he's gone straight."

DXVJKE

**Kirk was not exactly happy. Two hours of the same broadcast on the same channel in the same space could make them a target. He was never, EVER, happy when the Enterprise was a target. It didn't matter that this…music…was an integral part to his orders; that it was the only way to contact an unscrupulous, deadly, and whacked out pirate; or that said pirate, who had completely crippled his vessel and also saved his best officer and closest friend, was absolutely necessary to the survival to the Federation itself. What mattered was that they had been playing the same eight minutes of music over and over and over and over and over again in a manner that could draw all kinds of unsavory, yet curious, persons to his position. Thus, Kirk was not happy. **

"**Captain?" Lt. Uhura spoke up, her long fingers were resting on the earpiece that connected her to the subspace communications systems. "I…I think we're being hailed, sir."**

"**Hailed?" Kirk looked up on the viewscreen, seeing nothing but black, empty, space. "Hailed by whom? There's noth—" **

"**Vessel decloaking off the port bow, captain," Spock announced from his hunched position over the scanners. He straightened and turned to face the command chair. "It's the Crimson Assurance, sir." **

"**They're repeating the hail, sir," Uhura said quietly.**

"**Put it on screen, lieutenant." The screen went from the familiar starfield to a picture of a young lady who hadn't seemed to change since their last meeting. Her raven black hair, white skin, and icy gray eyes were still set off by the black trench coat and blue jeans. A smile was playing on her lips.**

"**My dear Captain James Kirk. To what do I owe this lovely meeting?" Kirk hearkened back to the day he first met this young woman who introduced herself as Viper. That meeting was far from "lovely"; degrading, humiliating, touchy, infuriating, anxious, testy, and maddening, yes, but hardly lovely. Then Spock showed up on her bridge, and his opinion of this ferocious commander changed. He now hoped that her opinion of him had changed as well, or this was going to be a very short, and possibly disastrous, meeting. **

"**Good to see our…message…go through, Major Harper. And as for why…we need a favor." Thin black eyebrows arched up on the major's face.**

"**A 'favor', Captain? Pirates don't do favors, except for one of our own. So unless you're first officer is willing to come back to the Assurance…" She trailed off ambiguously as Spock stepped down to the lower level. **

"**That is not likely, Major," the Vulcan intoned.**

"**Hey Saul, howyadoin?" Harper grinned. **

"**Quite well, Analise."**

"**You sure I can't convince you to come back?" **

"**Very," Came the droll response. **

"**Damn. Oh well, worth a shot." She shrugged as Spock continued the proposition that Kirk left off.**

"**If a 'favor' is not possible, then perhaps hiring you would be more acceptable?" Her head cocked to the right.**

"**Hiring me for what?"**

"**Something we can't discuss over an open channel," Kirk cut in. "Could we call truce to lay it out in person?" Harper looked up in mock aghast.**

"**Captain! Truce is a term used between enemies with the same goal and I would hate to consider our persons to be in such a position."**

"**As enemies?"**

"**No, as having the same goal," She flashed a grin. "We're about to have supper over here if you want to join us and set down your proposition."**

"**And what confidence do I have that you won't shoot us?"**

"**The simple truth that the majority of my time is spent being a mercenary, not a pirate, and the first rule of being a mercenary is that you never, EVER, shoot your employer until he has signed the cheque." Harper's wicked grin snapped into pure laughter at the look of shock plastered on Kirk's face. "Come on, we're having spanakopita and souvlakipita. My Tzatziki sauce is to die for." **

DXVJKE 

After my white lasagna, spanakopita is perhaps the most favored dish I can prepare for the bridge crew. The dish, which translated from Greek means "little spinach pie", is a combination of chopped spinach, egg, feta cheese, onion, spices, and olive oil wrapped in a light and flaky philo dough and baked until golden brown on the edges. I came across the pie in a seedy bar as it was served as an appetizer to cut the heavy taste of ouzo, a Grecian, liquorice flavored, alcohol, and instantly asked for the dish's recipe. Because the base of the pie had no meat in it, it could be easily inserted into a vegetarian diet, incase one was serving Vulcans.

However, the one complaint that my crew had with spanakopita (well, the male half at least) was that it was vegetarian. And after sitting through the umpteenth complaint (primarily from Duo) for the lack of seared animal flesh, I began making souvlakipita to accompany it. Souvlakipita, or little meat pie, was a combination of roasted lamb, olives, occasionally humus (ground chickpeas, sesame seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic) served on pita bread with tzatziki sauce (pureed cucumber, olive oil, garlic, and yogurt). Together, these two dishes were high on the list of "foods to make when we take the Romulans down a notch", and what I chose to make when we finally established contact with the Enterprise. Though this was against the traditional celebratory meal, in my mind, having Saul back on the Assurance was worth the extra time to make supper.

Thus, when the Enterprise officers came onboard, they were met with real food, not this dreck that came out of a replicator. Sure it was good for the everyday sustenance that we needed to get by, but for a meal such as this, it was not worthy. André volunteered to escort our guests up to the specially designated conference table so that I could finish setting everything up. The spanakopita came out of the oven crispy, golden, and perfect; the lamb was roasted (well, pan-fried, seeming how I didn't have a spit to set up for a traditional roasting) to perfection; the tzatziki sauce was ready; my officers were spit and polished as much as I could get them, and we all waited for André to arrive. He did, followed by the only three persons that I recognized from the Enterprise. Saul was there, of course, along with Kirk, and trailing behind them was their doctor…McCoy, I think his name was.

I stepped forward, shook hands, welcomed, the usual stuff, and then began to make introductions. My people were seated at their usual places, so all the names would be easy, almost reflective of the time Saul first ate with us.

"Gentlemen, I'm going to make names a little brief, so if you forget things, don't worry, I don't issue pop quizzes. That's Pilot, my helmsman, and her brother Gunner, my weapons exec. The guy with the braid is my chief engineer Duo and the blonde next to him is his brother Katra, high priest and grand wizard of all things with circuits. Together they keep this bucket of bolts flying when Pilot and Gunner continually threaten to wreck it." Both sets of siblings flashed grins at each other. "The big guy is Doctor John Carpenter, the Assurance's CMO, and one of the few formally educated persons on this ship. The young lady next to him is Hannah, my com officer and next to her is Bek'h, who is the only person I've ever met who adapted to the SINS faster than you did, Saul."

"I suppose then that it is a good thing I am no longer here, or the young lady would be out of a job," the Vulcan mused quietly.

"The giant's André, my first officer, but I suppose he's already introduced himself to you. And that just leaves me, so, shall we eat?" Everyone took their places, with Kirk on my right, McCoy on his other side, and Saul taking a seat next to André on my left. Food was passed around and eaten with gusto while small talk ensued, until halfway through, Kirk asked a more direct question.

"I'm curious, Major, as to how you came into possession of a Kriosian Battlecruiser."

"You mean, you want to know how a Klingon protectorate vessel could beat the snot out of a Fed warship, right?"

"Well, yes, but that would have been a rude question to ask someone who made dinner," he replied shamelessly. I laughed as he continued. "Besides, I have a hunch that to tell me what I really want to know, you would have to answer my original question, so I just decided to start there."

"You sure you're not a pirate?" I sipped my wine (Cabernet-Sauvignon, bit lighter than my traditional Merlot, goes better with lamb) and began to answer. "First off, props for being able to distinguish the original model of this ship. I've slapped and swapped so many parts it's hard to tell what the Assurance really is. But yes, you're right, she was originally a Kriosian Battlecruiser. I came across her in some scummy nameless spaceport…what was it, André, ten, eleven years ago?"

"Twelve, I believe, major," the giant replied. "And I think the port was called Ecstasy near the Romulan border."

"Really? Yeah I guess, that sounds about right…Anyway. The Assurance was stunning, streamlined, clean, little roughed up and—what are you laughing at?" My comment was directed at André, who was, in fact, laughing, in his stone-faced manner, imperceptible to anyone who hadn't been around him for nearly twenty years.

"'A little roughed up?' Major, the Assurance was a in worse condition than most Klingon garbage scows, she was slime covered and—"

"HEY! Who's telling this story?" I said, returning the Titan's smirk with a toothy grin. "Whatever the condition she was in, I wanted her. Unfortunately she was currently in the possession of one Ozar Valrush, an Orion pirate of questionable origin and hard drinking habits. He had taken the Assurance as a prize and was trying to sell it off for entirely too much money, nearly quadruple the price of a mint condition battlecruiser. Valrush was pandering to nearly fifteen different captains to take the Assurance and no one, wisely, was biting. When me and André came in, he was drunk as a skunk and slurring like someone had shot novocaine in all his facial muscles.

"So I came up with half a bottle of Mot'loch and sat amongst the other captains, who were also besotted, and started complaining, rather loudly, about the lack of liquid in this bar. Most of the captains were tired of Valrush and, for some reason, started listening to my ranting. One of them, I think he was Rigelian, not sure though, asked how much 'liquid' I considered to be 'enough'. And I replied 'I need a couple of oceans to drink.' This caught Valrush's attention, because he had always bragged he could out drink anyone, even proved it once, by sucking down about thirty gallons of water in one sitting. He staggered up to me and said it was impossible to drink an ocean. I replied that not only was it possible, I could do it in one gulp.

"Valrush scoffed and I said that I could drink three entire oceans, one after another, in less than a minute. He said prove it and I said, 'I will, but let's make a bet on it. If I can down three oceans in under a minute, I get that hunk of junk you've been hawking for the last four hours. If I can't I'll give you double your asking price and you keep the ship.' Valrush laughed, we shook on it, and in the presence of witnesses, I led them across the street to another, smaller, bar.

"There's a drink amongst the more seedier sides of the galaxy that consists of two shots of bourbon, three shots of vodka, a shot of gin, a shot of Grand Mariner, and eight ounces or Romulan Ale served in a chilled martini glass with a sliver of pickled ginger."

"That's a lot of alcohol," McCoy said, with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah, but it's a legitimate drink, served in most spaceports, recognized by pirates everywhere, and it's called an Ocean. I had the bartender make three of these and I knocked 'em back in about forty-five seconds. Once the pirate captains had figured out what I had done, they started laughing." My crew, who had heard this story some half hundred times, was enjoying the reaction of the Feds. I continued.

"Now Captain, it can be a very dangerous thing to make fifteen pirate captains laugh, unless they are dead drunk. They laughed so hard some of them started falling over, and even Valrush began to crack up. The mood was so jovial that he agreed to the bargain, rather than shooting me there on the spot for making a fool of him, and gave me the Assurance scot-free.

"Right before I pulled out of port, Valrush contacted me and told me that I had best hightail it out of his turf or he was going to fry this run-down scow."

"Why didn't he do it then and there?" Kirk asked, more interested than I believe he wanted me to see him.

"Hangover. Pretty bad one, and only matched by the one I had at the time. 45 ounces of hard liquor in less than a minute gives you a killer headache. I think now Valrush wishes he had overcome the aftershock instead of giving me the grace period."

"Why's that?" McCoy asked.

"Cause I kick his ass every third day of the week. Valrush has never really forgiven me for conning him out of the Assurance, but at least now he can't do anything about it," I grinned.

"Because of the upgrades?" Kirk asked. I looked sideways at him, knowing that he was after info on the advancement of the Assurance.

"You're way too sly for a Fed, James Kirk, and yeah, it's partly because of my upgrades," I leaned back a bit, "But more because of my crew." Kirk nodded.

"I know the feeling. There are days I would have never seen without the men and women of the Enterprise."

"Machines ain't worth a plugged nickel if there's no one to guide them," I agreed. Dinner was mostly over and I felt it was okay to move forward a little. "So, James, what's this job you need done?" Kirk leaned back from the table and twisted a little to look me square in the face.

"Well, Major, the Federation would like to hire you to steal something from the Romulans."

DXVJKE

YES!! Keath is back and badder than ever! Reviews will keep her from coming after you, so why not write one and slip into the little box in the left hand corner? Later,

DarkX


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: **The crew of the Crimson Assurance, their backgrounds, and the Stellionate are mine. I do not own any copywrited Startrek characters, places, ships, races, or designs. "Haunted" is owned by Evanescence and "By Myself" is owned by Linkin Park. This story is mine. People who have a problem with that can take it up with Batman and Dr. McNinja (neither of whom I own, but I do have great respect for).

**NOTES TO THE REVIEWRS:  
****Super Tinfoil Man Part 2**: Dude, do you like stalk my writing or something? Cause its like every story I put up, you're there reviewing it (which I do not mind in the least, just find it funny). As for demanding people to read Flight, the reason behind that is the fact that I want people to read Flight, but it is nice for someone to think that this could stand alone. Thanks for the review, mate! And I hope I get a slew of them as well.

Chapter 2  
The Setup

"Dude, you just said the two magic words," Duo said, his dark brown eyes snapping with energy. "Stealing from Romulans is perhaps the prettiest phrase uttered by man."

"What exactly are we going to steal, Captain?" Katra asked, his calm demeanor offsetting his brother's.

"StarFleet intelligence has come across evidence of a Romulan project to make an ordinary ruby able to focus a matter-antimatter stream eight times more accurately than a dilithium crystal." Duo let out the long low whistle he reserves for when he sees a really pretty woman. I looked over at him.

"I'm guessing that's significant?"

"No kiddin', boss. The configuration of the dilithium crystal allows it to channel matter and antimatter into a one-sub-atomic-particle-thick-field and then control the mini-reactions enough to conduct the field into a plasma stream, which then powers the engines. The problem is that this interaction of matter and antimatter is limited to the purity of dilithium and the delicacy of its crystallic configuration. If the Romulans can make an artificial crystal capable of refining this process by a factor of eight, it could very well make what we consider impossible speeds quite tangible, even mundane."

"How fast are we talking?" I pressed.

"I dunno, boss. Maybe, warp 20, 25, 30, no clue. But still, eight times the accuracy," he looked over at Kirk, "Romulans at warp 30 is bad news. For all of us."

"That's the position that the Federation is taking. However, there is little that we can do short of declaring war. But if their Empire is at the point of production of these artificial rubies…"

"We're sunk," I finished. I looked up at the ceiling, trying to process what had just been foisted upon me. "So, I'm guessing that the Federation wants us to get a hold of this rock, if it exists, and all their plans, etc. and just turn it all over to you?"

"Correct. The plans are most important, and as for the crystal itself, if we can get a hold of it, we need detailed scans of it so we could possibly produce our own."

"And what kind of payment are you offering for this?"

"Payment?" McCoy snapped. "This could possibly destroy the entire balance of power and all you can think about is whether or not you're going to get paid?" I smiled grimly.

"In my line of work, doctor, balances of power mean exactly bupkis. Pirates have existed in the midst of the most powerful empires ever fathomed; if the Romulans take over, I don't really care."

"That is the most—"

"Bones," Kirk said quietly, restraining the doctor's growing ire. The Fed turned to address me, "The Federation is willing to foot the entire bill for this endeavor and give you the original crystal along with copies of all the plans to make your own, should we get it." I looked at him with very hard eyes.

"James, you do realize what you just said right? You're going to give what you just admitted to be that which tips your balance of power to a PIRATE. Let me spell this out to you. I. Am. A. Pirate. NOT. An. Ally. I could easily turn on you the moment I get it installed in my warp drive and there would be nothing your Federation could do about it. You are practically handing me enough power to bring your trade routes, and thus your civilization, to its knees. Are you absolutely out of your mind?"

"No," he replied.

"Then what the bloody hell are you people thinking?" I was riled. This offer smelled suspiciously of a trap and I didn't like it at all.

"Merely," Kirk said very calmly, "That you're the best person to take and keep the finished prototype, because you are dangerously hostile to the Romulan Empire and relatively indifferent to the Federation. Which leaves both Federation and Empire with COPIES of the plan and a common enemy with the only working model. No one would be able to take it from you, thus restoring the balance."

"And what's to keep me from conquering your Federation that I am so indifferent to?" I was mad. How dare this…this…Fed scum assume on my actions? What right does he have to predict what I was going to do? Why did he think this way of me?

_Because you had mercy and cared for me when I was in your power._ My eyes snapped from Captain to Commander and bored into him. There was a piece of him still inside me, in the depths of my consciousness, and every once in a while, even though we were lightyears apart, I could feel him. And now this thought flit across my mind and I felt him, felt his sincerity; felt that this really was what the Federation was offering, no strings attached. They wanted me to be the guardian of this crystal and that was because of what Saul told them about my crew, about me. But rather than being hit by waves of betrayal, I felt encouragement emanating from him. And I knew that this was the way things were supposed to be.

This is what I was supposed to do.

James had said something to answer my question, but I didn't hear it. Nothing he could ever say had as much weight as what Saul had just thought. "Cared for me." That phrase held a lot of memories: the initial decision, the four months of trust, the night my life changed, the day of revelation. Saul was the only person who had ever come that close to me. He had seen my soul, knew exactly who I was and what I had done and what I was capable of doing, and trusted me. That was a bond I could lean into. Saul would not ever let the Federation's politics harm me or my crew the same way I refused to let anything harm him. And in one instant my entire demeanor towards this job changed.

Everyone was looking at me: Kirk and McCoy for an answer, my crew for their orders, Saul because he had felt the change. I exhaled slowly and finished my wine.

"So lemme get this straight, your Federation wants me to infiltrate some Romulan base somewhere, steal the crystal and its plans, deliver copies of both to you, and I get to keep the original, no strings attached?" Kirk nodded in reply.

"Any idea where this stuff is?"

"Actually, yes." Kirk pulled out a red disk and handed it to me. "All the information we've been able to gather is on this. The crystal, which does exist, has been in a top secret facility in the depths of Romulan space, where our spies have been able to track its movements."

"So why can't your spies get it?"

"The crystal and plans were moved from the research station, which was remote, to a highly populated area."

"They put it in the vault of a casino," McCoy put in. Well, that was…different.

"Really. Do you know which one and where?"

"It's in the Stellionate casino on Marcus V."

"Damn," Katra whispered. I looked sharply at my computer officer. The quiet man never cursed as a rule and anything that could make him swear was very, Very, VERY bad news. I ran a hand through my hair before asking the question that must be voiced.

"How bad is that?"

"To put it in understandable terms, ma'am, it is going to be like picking an electronic lock with a river stone."

"That's not good, Kat."

"No, ma'am, it's not," Duo continued his brother's train of thought. If I hadn't been so freaked by Katra swearing, I would have been looking for the Apocalypse seeming how Duo had just called me "ma'am". Today was just getting better and better…"Marcus V is a world entirely populated with casinos. It's a resort popular amongst Imperial fleet commanders, the rich merchant class, the Senate, and, at times, the Imperial family itself. It's rumored that over half the GNP of the Romulan Empire changes hands on that world. They have security systems for the security systems and the Stellionate is the worst of them all."

"It's the casino that all the upper class frequent," Katra said, "The vault is not only the holding place of all the revenue for the casino but also the personal items of the guests. State secrets, family jewels, heirlooms, and precious trading commodities that belong to the persons staying there are put in separate rooms of the vault for safe keeping."

"Then that is the logical place for this crystal," Saul said. Both brothers nodded in sync.

"So you're telling me that we have to rob the most closely guarded vault of the most closely guarded casino on the most closely guarded planet in the bloody Romulan Empire?" No one answered my question; no one had to. I turned to my first officer. "Whadayathink, André?" The Titan had been staring at the wall, deep in thought, ever since the deal was laid on the table.

"We'll need at least a dozen people, a flexible plan, a damn fast ship or three, money and a hell of a lot of luck." I turned to Kirk.

"You sure you want me to do this?" He nodded and I sighed. "Alright, we'll take the job, but only on these conditions: one, I run this show. That means I make the rules, I call the shots, I make the decisions, you got a problem with that, shove off now. Two, the three of you join my team and follow my plan, no questions asked. Three, you set up an off shore bank account, the Orions would be a good neutral place, and you pile it damn high with non-sequential credits. We'll need roughly six and half million. Four, I need at least three small and fast ships and they cannot be of Federation design. So you either build them from scratch or you buy them from the black market. You okay with all that?" Kirk nodded again.

"I'll need to contact the Federation to take care of the last two conditions, as for the rest, we're good." I stared hard at him.

"You do understand that we're going to be doing some pretty unscrupulous things. Are you sure you're ready to get your hands dirty?" Kirk, McCoy, and Saul all exchanged glances, as if having a telepathic conference. McCoy finally spoke up.

"If it'll avert a war, we're good." I reached over, picked Kirk's disk off the table and tossed it at Duo.

"Duo, Bek'h, Saul, start analyzing the info on that. Kat and Hannah, hack the Romulan network and pull up everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, on Marcus V, the Stellionate, and especially the vault. I want to know the layout of everything, building plans, security systems, who's there now, who's coming, who works there, who does what job. Transfer it over to the analysis team and help them try to get some semblance of a plan together then run it by me. Doctors, brush up on your plastic surgery skills, we'll be needing it. Pilot, start mapping out how to get into the Empire and at least eighteen different exit routes. James, I'll leave you to handle conditions three and four. Gunner, start making bombs. And André, I'm going to be leaving the Assurance in your care seeming how you'd be far too recognizable on Marcus V. Okay, any questions? No? Alright people, let's get to work."

DXVJKE

I really hated preliminary work. It sucked, big time: it was boring, long, boring, tedious, boring, time consuming, droll, boring, painstaking, boring, laborious, boring work that didn't include shooting people, blowing ships up, robbing, cheating, stealing, or the usual skullduggery that is usually commonplace on the Assurance. Plus, it usually involved computers (not my forte), logic (not my forte), and patience (certainly not my forte). And seeming how I had more than enough experts taking care of the minutiae, I decided to skive out on this lovely little detail collecting party. I had bigger fish to deal with.

Specifically, the fact that I was going into Romulan space…as a civilian no less…was irking me to no end. I was going to have to kiss up to those bastards (without SHOOTING them) and do it on a Fed payroll. This was not good. And so it was here, in the pulsing cocoon of acidic rock known as my quarters, I was beginning to second guess myself. What the bloody HELL was I THINKING? I could barely look at Romulan space without tasting bile and now I was going to go IN there for an unknown period of time to be with those…people.

"This is not going to be good for my sanity," I said to no one in particular.

"I wouldn't announce that to the crew, Keath." I whipped around to see Carpenter standing in the doorway.

"What the hell are you doin', Doc? Tryin' to gimme a heart attack?" The doctor laughed at my ire and came to sit on my couch.

"Didn't mean to. I rang the bell, but I doubt you could hear it in this racket."

"Computer, cut music," I barked as the deafening tones dropped.

"Didn't even think anyone listened to Linkin' Park anymore," Carpenter said with a smile.

"So I like old-school. So sue me," I snapped back playfully.

"I'm beginning to think that I should schedule a psyche evaluation for you."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"'By Myself' isn't exactly the most hopeful music in the galaxy and when it's played after Evanescence's 'Haunted', a man begins to wonder about his CO's mental health. Now, hold up, Keath," he said, lifting his hands in a defensive position, as I had tensed all my muscles, "Don't go ballistic on me. I was only making an observation."

"What's your point, Doc?" I snarled. Carpenter sighed.

"I've been here for nigh on seven years, which is a pretty long time when compared to other pirate bands. In that time, I've begun to draw some conclusions based on the actions of certain members of the crew, you in particular. I know that you have some kind of grudge against the Romulans and I know that you have an intense and deadly hatred against slavers."

"So does 95 of the people here and on the Rock."

"Yes, but they don't drastically increase their alcohol intake or withdraw from society after encountering the Romulans or slavers. Now, I don't pretend to know why you have such bad blood for, and for the most part, I don't really care. But Keath, when I came onboard, I swore an oath to protect and care for the people on this ship as long as I could, and I have absolutely no intention of breaking that oath."

"And again I ask, what's your point?" Carpenter sighed and looked straight at me.

"If you took this job to fulfill some personal vendetta against the Romulans, then I'm going to relieve you of command, for the good of the Assurance." I clenched my jaw and slowly rose to my feet.

"Are you suggesting, Doctor, that I would put myself before my crew? That I would risk their lives to—"

"I need to know, Keath. I need to know that you're not sending your best people into a death trap. Now, tell me straight, why are you doing this?"

"Are you giving me an order, mister?"

"I'm asking you a question."

"I don't need to take this," I began to walk away.

"Tabitha." I froze and looked back over my shoulder. "Please, I'm asking as a friend, as a fellow officer, and as CMO of this ship, responsible for this crew, why are you doing this?"

Why was I doing this? Phrases from the meeting earlier came flitting through my head. Balance of power. Good of the people. Eight times as accurate. Foot the bill. We'll give you the crystal. Cared for me.

Why was I doing this?

Why am I doing this?

Why?

WHY?

WHY? 

I sighed and turned back to the doctor. "If the Romulans start producing those power crystals unchecked, there are going to be a lot of innocents in slaver holds and we won't be able to do anything about it. I'm doing this for the good of the crew, the Rock, the Assurance. And if I get to kick the Romulan Empire in the balls, so much the better. But I swear, Doc, my vendetta, as you call it, will not be an issue, and you can take that to the bank." Carpenter sat there for nearly a minute and then nodded slowly.

"Okay," was all he said as he stood to leave.

"Oh and Doc?" Carpenter turned in the doorway to look back at me, expectantly. "Call me Tabitha again and I'll break your jaw, 'kay?" He laughed and sauntered down the hallway.

DXVJKE

Fortunate for me, about two hours later, I got a call from Hannah saying that we were ready to regroup. The conference table, now cleared of food, was littered with data PADDS, disks, styluses, empty coffee cups, full coffee cups, dry-write markers, and balls of silly putty (which Duo swore up, down and sideways was the best thing to have around when making plans). When I walked in, everyone was sitting in roughly the same places as before. I sat down, snagging a lime-green ball of putty, and began the run-down.

"Okay, let's start with the most essential. James, how much dough we got?"

"9.7 million non-sequential credits in an Orion banking union, as you asked. We got fifteen different access keys that are wired to twenty-seven different, randomized and untraceable accounts, pulling from the same pool. So, as long as no one has any overtly expensive tastes, we'll be set financially," the Enterprise's captain said calmly, his demeanor looking more and more like Saul's as my crew got excited.

"You scored ten effing million credits?" Gunner asked, shocked. "Hell, Ma'am, we could probably buy the krethin' ruby for that kind of cash."

"Yeah, but where'd the fun in that be?" Pilot demanded, punching her brother in the ribs. "An' don't cuss. S'not pleasant."

"Eff off, 'Lot."

"Tch, Skret you, noob."

"You hrakkin piece of—"

"SHUT IT!" I barked at the two siblings, who were ready to start a fistfight. "Siddown, both of you."

"Awww, come on Boss, it was just gettin' good," Duo whined, until I shot him the death glare.

"You encourage them to fight and I'll make you my punching bag for the next two months. Got that, Sunshine?" Duo bristled at the humiliating nickname I gave him, but he held his tongue. "Good." I turned back to Kirk, who was sitting with a very amused look on his face. "Sorry about that. What about the ships?"

"We've acquired three Rigellian slip-sailors: A Zeto class and two J'taks. They're in really good condition, though a little scuffed up. The Federation is upgrading them with warp nine engines and they should be here in thirty-six hours."

"Slips don't have much shielding," Bek'h commented.

"Won't need 'em if they've got warp nine engines," Duo replied contritely.

"No matter, they'll work," I said. "Thanks, Captain." Kirk nodded and I went to the next group. "Doctors, you feeling confident about cosmetic surgery?"

"Appearances are not going to be a problem," McCoy replied. "It's getting our bio-signs passed the scanners that'll be deuce hard." I felt confused.

"What about the taggers? Did we run out or something?"

"Taggers?" McCoy's brow wrinkled as my confusion passed to him. "What's a tagger?" And suddenly, everything made sense. I turned on my CMO.

"Doc, you didn't tell him about the taggers?"

"I didn't think it was prudent at the time, Keath. I mean, they are Feds, after all, and this is pretty…well…you know. I didn't want to be responsible if you thought that giving them the taggers was a bad idea."

"That's a bad case of CYA you're breaking out in, you should get it looked at," I bit back.

"The doctor has a point, Major," André spoke up.

"Yeah, but a) we're going to be working closely with them, b) taggers are a necessity if we're gonna pull this off, and c)…I don't have a c, but the first two points are good enough."

"Then you are authorizing us to show them the most important piece of technology that we have ever come across, ma'am?" There was an edge in my first officer's voice that I particularly didn't like. But that was beside the point.

"We don't have much of a choice, otherwise." It is extremely difficult to have a staring contest with a being that doesn't blink, but that's basically what I was doing. I was not happy, at all. Having my top two officers second guess my orders was bad enough, having them do it in the presence of three Feds was even worse.

"Excuse me, but choice about what?" Kirk spoke up, forcing me to break from André to face down another hard-eyed man. This day was getting better and better.

"Doctor McCoy, if you had to guess as to what Duo's race was, what would you say?" The StarFleet officer looked over at my engineer and then back at me.

"I would say he's human."

"Scan him, if you will." McCoy looked over at Kirk, who nodded, then lifted his tricorder and ran it over Duo.

"Impossible."

"What, Bones?"

"Jim, this thing says that he's a Tellarite."

"And Bek'h?" I said, directing the shocked doctor to the pale Andorian sitting to his right. McCoy scanned her and glared at me.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"Bones?" Kirk growled.

"Say's she's a damn Vulcan. Now, Jim, I brought this thing straight from the Enterprise, haven't had anyone touch it, and know for a fact that that young lady is NOT a Vulcan."

"You're right," I said, "Bek'h's a full blooded Andorian. And Duo is human. And so are you, but if you scan yourself now, you'll come up as a Klingon. Go ahead." McCoy turned the scanner on himself, glanced at the readings, and then jerked his head up at me.

"How?" I nodded to Duo and Bek'h, who both put small, round, black objects, the size and shape of a river pebble, on the table.

"These are taggers. They're a piece of equipment we picked up a few years ago that interferes with a scanner's readings. They can be dialed to represent the bio-scans of eighteen different races, or tailored to meet a host of others. They run off the natural bio-energy of whoever's holding it. Taggers are untraceable, unscannable, and, as long as no one needs emergency surgery, completely safe." I reached over and picked up one of the black pebbles. "This is how we're going to get past the Romulans."

Kirk let out a low whistle. "You weren't joking when you said this is an important piece of technology." André and Carpenter had sunken into a near sullen silence. I pointedly ignored them and directed my full attention to the Enterprise's Captain.

"We don't have many opportunities to use them, but they're a necessity for this mission. Infiltrating this place is going to require the ability to blend in with the local populace. Having eight humans, two half-Vulcans and an Andorian show up on a Romulan world is going to be distinctly noticed, which is something I don't want. Plastic surgery only goes so far." I turned my stare at my silent senior officers. "And I don't like withholding information from members of my team." André and Carpenter exchanged glances and then, almost imperceptibly, nodded at me. Good. Divisions, no matter how small, were not good to have. "Okay. Moving on. What do you have on this vault?" Katra swiveled out of his chair and walked over to a large blank wall. He touched a panel near the wall, causing the lights in the room to dim and the wall itself to flicker in life. A picture of a starfield, which I recognized as Romulan space as taken from the Neutral zone, appeared and slowly began to zoom in. Katra began explaining.

"Marcus V is located almost in the exact center of Romulan space. It is the fifth planet in the system Inor, a small, white dwarf star with eighteen planetary bodies. The two closest to Marcus V are security bases designed to protect the planet." The wall had zoomed in to an aerial view of the system, outlining the planets in question. "Marcus also has three moons, one is a spaceport, one is the power plant for the entire planet and the other controls all the electronics for the planet below. All three have security that would make a thief cry in frustration."

"Where's the Stellionate?" I asked. The wall zoomed in response.

"It's located in the north western hemisphere, surrounded by the eight highest ranked, most sought after, casinos. All nine are owned by the same corporation and, with the exception of the Stellionate, they all feed into the same vault." A schematic of the cluster came up on screen. "The vaults of the other eight are connected in a ring with the vault we're after in the center." The casino's melted into a layout of the vault systems. Duo stood up.

"Speaking from an engineering point of view, this vault system is worth drooling over. The ring-vault serves as the first layer of the Stellionate's vault, making what we're after one of the most inaccessible vaults in the known universe, but we won't bother with the outer vault. The one we're after is located about half a mile beneath the casino's floor with one, and only one, shaft in and out. The turbo lift is voice controlled with a verbal activation code given to six people: the vault manager, the casino owner, and the four armed-guards responsible with transporting goods in and out of the vault. The code is randomized every six hours and without it the turbo lift won't budge. The actual shaft is covered with motion sensor panels, energy sensors, heat sensors, and equipped with state of the art laser cannons and phaser banks that could work a number on us, boss."

"So, even if we could hack through the lift, there's no way to get down the shaft without ending up as fried street pizza," I asked, already knowing the answer. Duo, knowing that I knew, didn't even bother with a response. "What's beyond the lift?"

"The ante-chamber." The wall zoomed down the shaft and opened to the place in question. "Where we get more scanners, motion sensors, weapons, and, oh this is cool, the floor is electrified. There's no way to touch it without getting half a million volts of alternating current whipped through your body: instant brain mush." McCoy looked at my chief engineer aghast.

"You think that's 'COOL'?"

"Well yeah…in a completely…um…its kind of…boss, help?" I rolled my eyes.

"Just keep going."

"Yeah…right…the door to the vault is combination of retina and DNA scanners along with a second randomized verbal command that has to match the acceptable voice perameters. And I know what you're thinking, boss, no we can't drill through it. The door is twenty-four inches of titanium steel, plutonium, beryllium, and carbon steel alloys layered to make one hell of a tough nut to crack."

"I don't suppose we could just beam into it," Gunner asked hopefully.

"Impossible," Katra replied, stoic as ever. "There are five different layers of shielding and force fields surrounding the vault. Three are around the ring-vault, which makes it a very affective outer wall of sorts. There is no way that we could beam in without taking down all five, separately powered, fields, all of which use completely different frequencies of light oscillation."

"What about tunneling beneath the vault and coming up through it?" Pilot suggested.

"No, for the same reasons that we can't beam in or drill through."

"Plus," Duo said, picking up when his brother paused, "The entire ground surrounding the vault has enough sensors to let them know when an earthworm farts. They'd probably know we're tunneling in before we do." The wall then brought up a display of the actual vault. "But, once we're past the doors, the rest is a piece of cake. We just have to get around the three heavily armed guards, the closed circuit computer generated timelock, the force field, an electrified floor, a half score of cameras, built in high-powered phasers, and the actual combination safe that the crystal and plans are being kept in."

"They put it in a combination SAFE?" Hannah looked shocked. "Like, tumblers and everything?"

"Yup," Duo nodded.

"The idiots," Hannah scoffed. "What the hell are they thinking, putting it in a safe?"

"Possibly that their vault is so inaccessible that it doesn't really matter where the actual crystal is kept," Saul said quietly.

"Do you mind if I ask a question?" I looked over at McCoy as Katra nodded. "Suppose we get into the turbo lift we can't move, down the shaft that will slice us six ways from Sunday, across the floor that will fry us, through the door we can't open, past the guards and all that stuff, and finally through this safe. If we do that, are we just supposed to walk out of here carrying the most powerful invention since the photon torpedo?"

"Well, yeah," Duo answered.

"That's what you people hired us to do," Katra added.

"Great," McCoy sighed. "How?"

"And that's the sixty four dollar question," I said. "Alright people, good work. Let's all take a break, get some sleep, and we'll tackle this fresh tomorrow." PADDs, cups, putty, and data disks were cleared from the table as the group began to dissipate, leaving me alone with my two senior officers. "I'm guessing you recognize the problem too?" André and Carpenter exchanged glances and slowly nodded. I massaged my temples, this was not going to be pleasant. "Guys, I don't care what you say or how you address me in private, but second guessing my orders in front of the lower decks is absolutely unacceptable and I will not tolerate it."

"We didn't second guess your orders, Keath—"

"Then what the hell did you call that bit earlier?"

"Being skeptical of present company. Just because they're hiring us doesn't mean we tell them everything."

"You think I don't know that? I made that kreth-dammed rule and—"

"You haven't been following it lately."

"Things change," I snapped back.

"But this? It's part of your nature to be skeptical of outsiders but this complete 180? What the hell's going on?"

"You've never been like this when I choose to reveal information to people we're working with. Why are you allowed to change and I'm not?"

"Because I don't go revealing information to prospective enemies."

"SAUL IS NOT OUR ENEMY!!"

"I didn't say he was. But he has the possibility to become one. He's a Fed, Keath. You cannot deny that. Revealing something like the taggers to the Feds is like flirting with fire."

"So you're questioning my judgement now? Then why the skragg not just call for a bloody vote of no krething confidence and take this before the general—"

"Major." I stopped: André was exuding that quite force that had made him so invaluable to me so many years ago. One did not keep on ranting when he spoke that way. Not even me. "Skepticism has kept this crew alive through countless dangers. It has been our shield and I am not about to fling it away so quickly. I told the doctor not to mention the taggers," My eyes narrowed, "because I thought you would not wish them revealed. When you chose to do so, it caught me off guard and I reacted. I apologize for my actions." Instantly my anger was gone. André was, perhaps, the only person capable of sending me from blinding rage to instant peace in nanoseconds.

"No, André, it was my fault. I shouldn't have chewed you both out for doing your job. That was incredibly pig-headed of me, especially to you, Doc."

"Forget it, Keath. We cool?"

"Cool as a cucumber," I replied, standing up. "Right, sleep and we'll start fresh tomorrow. Oh, André, off the top of your head, what are we going to need?" The now relaxed Titan (though you can't really tell the difference between a relaxed Titan and a tense one, but no matter) thought a minute.

"Roughly we're looking at a highball, a lowball, two yeagers, a lifter, a turn, three cats, a dog and a hack-slash. Minimum."

"Hmm…okay." I turned and walked out of the room.

DXVJKE

So, Keath's a little more snarky/emo/goth than usual. Points to whomever knows what Stellionate is. Next chapter will appear when I feel like writing it. SIDE NOTE: Anyone who hasn't heard Wolfmother needs to get over to the nearest music store and buy their stuff. I'm serious. It is the most amazing blend of music i have ever heard: kind of a melding of the Beatles, the Stones, and Pink Floyd. A fun addition for you next acid party, to be sure. Anyway, enough of that. Drop a review in the little box down in the left hand corner. Later,  
DarkX


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Kyle, the Enterprise, the Excaliber, Zen Buddhists, Orions, Mok'Bara, Northern Shaolin martial arts, the Pirate Code, whiskey, Navy SEALs, Rigellian ships, silly putty, Romulan anything, the Green Bay Packers, PADD's or any registered Star Trek technology. But the Assurance and her crew are mine and anyone who tries to steal them will be hunted down and attacked by the dreaded Deadly Emo Samurai Pirate Zombie Ninja Saiyan Lawyers of DOOM!!! BEWARE!!!

**Notes and So Forth:**

**Super Tinfoil Man Part 2: **Thanks so much for the review, dude. And thanks for being such a faithful reviewer. And thanks for the compliment...you may need to retract it after this chapter though, because I ramble on and on in this one...and it gets a little confusing. But anyway, yeah, it's like Ocean's, because I LOVE that movie's idea and...I like the thought of Spock stealing from Romulans...again. So, Thanks for sticking around and I hope that other people get the memo about it.

**A/N:** Please remember that all text written in **BOLD** occurs outside the scope of the protagonist and is written in third person narrative. On to the story!

Chapter 3  
The Cast

I loved walking through the Assurance when the night shift was on. The normal hustle and bustle that accompanied the day shifts was now deadened. Everyone was asleep, excepting the bridge crew who had been stuck at the meeting until half an hour ago, but I was fairly certain that they were about the hit the hay themselves. I would join them if it weren't for the fact that a) the only place I can really sleep was the Rock, b) my brain was racing with how the skragging-kreth we're going to pull this job off and c) I had entirely too much coffee to sleep.

Thus, I was wandering through the dead-quiet corridors of the Assurance, trying to work through the various stages of hyper-stimulation and failing miserably. By the time I got to deck five, I had practically given up the idea that a mere walk could help me sleep. So I went to the gym. In the changing room I dropped my boots, guns, and jacket, and strode confidently into the matted room that smelled of plastic, sweat, and bleach. I sat in the middle of the room and began to practice the ancient art of breathing to clear my mind.

On Earth, the ancient Zen Buddhists believed that correct breathing was the key to correct meditation, and meditation was the means to reaching Enlightenment. Now, seeming how a simple, materialistic pirate such as myself has no intention of joining the great state of "Oneness" with the Universe, when I first heard of the art of Zazen, or achieving Zen through meditation, I was more than a little skeptical. Until I tried it. And then I was convinced that maybe these skin-heads weren't so off the mark. I had long learned that there was peace for me in oblivion (several dead Jack Daniel's testified to that), but finding it in a place other than the bottom of a shot glass was something new. But the art of breathing, of cleansing my mind of all thought, of focusing on nothing, this left me invigorated rather than intoxicated. Thus, it had lately become my practice before physical exertion to take time and go through the Zazen.

I'm never really aware of the passage of time when I'm in the gym, but I had a feeling I couldn't have been in the Zazen for more than a few minutes when the door opened.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't think anyone would be in here." I snapped my eyes open to see none other than James Kirk, also barefoot, standing in the doorway.

"Surprise," I replied, slowly unfolding myself from the Lotus position to begin stretching.

"Do you mind if…?" Kirk trailed off as I waved him in.

"Not at all. Couldn't sleep?" I began a light form of Mok'bara to warm up.

"No. You?" I laughed softly.

"I'm a ship captain. Sleep is a luxury I can't afford." The Mok'bara's sweeping movements had me turned away from the Fed so couldn't quite see his reaction to my statement, or what he was doing. When no reply came, I asked the question that had been burning in my brain since he stepped through the door. "So, why aren't you on the Enterprise?"

"Is this an interrogation?" I could detect a heavy dose of amusement in his question.

"Well, let's just say I'm not exactly happy with a Fed prowling around my ship in the dead middle of the night."

"You let Spock." Hmm, that sounded indignant.

"Because he was an amnesic member of my crew with a more…moldable…sense of morality."

"Spock?" Now it was incredulous.

"You'd be surprised." I had practically given up the mental aspects of Mok'bara as the temptation to laugh at Kirk was entirely too great.

"Like what?" He had circled around where I was to face me, intense curiosity in his hazel eyes.

"Oh no, James Kirk, you are not getting anything out of me."

"As his superior officer—"

"As his superior officer you should be going to ask him. Pirates have a strict rule of secrecy concerning their own."

"But you said earlier that he's no longer a pirate."

"But _I_ am. And seeming how Saul was on _MY_ ship, anything I say about him implicates me, and we're still in Fed space." I turned so he wouldn't see me grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"You know, you'd make a hell of a good lawyer, Major." I whipped back around to deliver up my best death glare.

"Them's fightin' words, mister." Kirk's face cracked into quite the roguish smile.

"Guess that ends that conversation." He moved back to his previous position with me in hot pursuit.

"Oh no, you're not getting out that easy, buster. You still haven't answered my question."

"I don't give into the demands of pirates." There's that indignation again.

"You tryin' to picka fight wit' me, James?"

"Why not? You win, I'll tell you why I'm here. I win you have to tell me what qualifies Spock as having moldable morality." I eyed him shrewdly.

"No, that's not a fair bet. Because if you lose, you hurt only yourself but if I lose it hurts another." He looked up in surprise. "What? I'm not allowed to have a sense of honor?"

"Well, you ARE a pirate."

"Ooo, boy, I'm gonna knock da taste outta yo mout." Kirk started laughing.

"Alright, I win, you tell me the biggest heist you pulled while Spock was on your ship."

"Hmph, who's the lawyer now? Eh. Alright, deal."

"Fighting terms?"

"Marquis of Queensberry Rules." He nodded and began looking around for gloves when I socked him with a right cross. Dropping hard on the floor he came up with a slight look of outrage.

"What the hell was that?"

I grinned wolfishly: "Pirates don't play by the rules, Jimmy-Boy." I slid my right foot around to give me a more stable fighting base as he picked himself up off the floor.

"So, lemme get this straight. You have 'honor' but you're a thief. You have no problem lying through your teeth and yet you don't want to be called a lawyer. And now you don't play by the rules?" He was standing at a civil distance, slightly rubbing his jaw.

"Yup."

"So what do you call all those rules you recited when you called truce?" More indignation. Geez, did this guy ever _not_ sound like I had just spit on his mother's flag?

"You mean the Code? Oh, well, those are more like…guidelines, really."

"_Guide_lines?" He took a few irate steps forward.

"Yeah. Why, does that irk you?" I asked, grinning wolfishly

"Not as much as the fact that I practically turned over my ship to a hypocritical pirate based on a faith in a bunch of guidelines!" I straightened from my fighting stance and stared at him.

"Dude, you seriously need to loosen up."

And that was when he decked me.

Fortunately, I had been in enough bar fights to instinctively roll with a punch, so I didn't end up on the floor. I licked the corner of my mouth to be met with the acidic taste of blood, which I quickly wiped away.

"Smooth, James. Very smooth." We both assumed fighting stances and paused for half a breath before I moved. I stepped into a boxer's stance so that he was just within the reach of my fists and struck out with two swift left jabs, both of which he blocked before countering. He cut across with his left arm in a Judo-like thrust, trying to hit my shoulder and throw me off balance. He was a lot faster than I had originally anticipated and I dropped out of instinct. I planted my hands behind me and used my falling momentum to kick upwards. I felt my shin connect with the right side of his ribcage briefly before he rolled out of it. Not a good blow, but enough to force him to catch his breath, which gave me time to move.

I snapped into the Northern Shaolin style martial arts, sweeping down onto my left leg to deliver two quick punches to his right leg. It wasn't nearly enough power to hurt him, but it was enough to throw him off balance. He stepped backwards as I came up, pivoted on my left foot, and brought my right leg around and down in a sweeping arc, trying to catch his shoulder. Kirk dodged it by moving to his left then quickly came back with on hell of a blow to my solar plexus. I doubled over and allowed the downward curl to carry me forward onto the floor until my feet came into contact with his chest and I kicked. Hard.

I connected well and watched with satisfaction as he tumbled onto his back as I rolled up from the floor. Kirk spun on his shoulder and hooked his foot around my ankle. I fell with absolutely no momentum, which not only gave him time to get up but to get the better position. Dammit. The only move I could do I had only seen carried out perfectly by an Orion acrobat and I was no where near as flexible as she was. Still, it was worth a shot. I pushed quickly up into backwards somersault and pressed off of my shoulder into a handstand and cracked out my legs into a sideways split, making Kirk back up enough for me to right myself.

And that was when I felt the mind-numbingly painful wrenching of my left shoulder. I had to suppress the urge to cuss in six different languages as Kirk was coming back at me. I turned to defend my injured arm and barely blocked the first blow. I backed up quickly as he rained blows on my right side, then jumped backwards, rebounded, and flipped over his right side to drop into a twisting kick. I solidly connected with his right leg, felt it give way, and then froze in the horror as he started to fall on top of me. I reacted with a back handspring, completely forgetting about my shoulder until it gave way and I crumpled into a heap on the mats.

Then the com unit on the wall gave it's annoying little beep and the night guy who usually replaced Hannah called up.

"_Major?"_ I wearily got up off the floor, keeping a weathered eye on Kirk, and wandered over to the wall.

"Here. go ahead."

"_The Enterprise just contacted us, Ma'am. Said they got a message for their captain but I don't rightly know where he is and I was calling down for—"_

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up, dude. Kirk's with me. Gimme a sec." I turned to my former opponent. "It's for you." Kirk picked himself up off the floor and walked over before I addressed the wall again. "Right, patch the Enterprise through."

"_Aye, ma'am."_ There was a soft clicking before the thickest Scottish burr I had ever heard came crackling through the little gray box.

"_Cap'n?"_

"Go ahead Mr. Scott," Kirk replied.

"_We've jus' gotten whord from t'Scaliber, sarh. Said t'ayed be a bringin' t'ships ye ordered t'morrah even'n an' Aye dunna ken where t'puttem, sarh, as t'ay willna fitten t'bay." _

"Don't worry about docking them, Scotty, I have a feeling that we'll be using them pretty promptly."

"_Aye, sarh."_

"Anything else?"

"_No, sarh, t'at was aul." _

"Alright, keep me up to date if anything happens."

"_Aye, sarh, Enterprise out."_ The gray box ceased its chatter and Kirk turned to face me.

"Well, transportation's coming."

"Great," I said, moving back towards the middle of the floor. "You ready to finish this?" He gave me a look of absolute disbelief.

"You're kidding right?"

"We still have a bet to finish," I pressed, ignoring the searing pain of my shoulder.

"Screw the bet. You just about broke three of my ribs and if Bones finds out I went back into a fight with you he's going to bump up my physical to see what else you did." I looked at him and then laughed, really laughed, until my shoulder screamed loud enough to make me stop.

"Your doc really that bad?" I asked with tears in the corners of my eyes. Whether they were from the humor of the pain, I didn't know or really care.

"Terrible. Bet's off?"

"Yeah. Good thing too, I think I tore every ligament and muscle in my left shoulder and it's giving me hell."

"Was that from that roll thing?" I nodded as we walked to the antechamber where our respective shoes were waiting. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"An Orion acrobat taught it to me, but she was the only person I've ever seen able to do it without seriously injuring various body parts." Kirk whistled softly as we walked through the door.

"So why'd you use it?" I paused in reaching for my boots to answer him directly.

"For the simple reason that I will not allow myself to lose to some rule-abiding, regulation spouting, holier-than-thou, Fed captain who hasn't done a damn thing wrong in his life."

"THAT'S your opinion of me?" He shook his head. "Major, I could tell you stories that would make you think I'd be a better pirate than even you." I snorted derisively.

"You? Captain James T. Kirk? Poster-boy for the Federation? Not buyin' that, dude."

"I'm serious!" I snagged my guns up and began to buckle them around my waist.

"Alright, new bet. We'll swap stories and if you can't impress me with your law-flouting, you tell me what you were doing on the Assurance in the dead of night. If, however, you can, I'll tell you about Saul's questionable morality."

"Whoa, now, hold up. What happened to the pirate code of honor and all that rule stuff from before?"

"I told you, James, the Code is merely a bunch of guidelines." He glared and I laughed again. "Come on, I've got a boatload a' whiskey in my quarters and I have a feeling we can put quite a dent in it."

DXVJKE

It had to be the worst idea I had ever had in my life and now I was paying dearly for it. It had never crossed my mind that Kirk could hold his liquor that well and in the course of five hours we had knocked out something like thirty shots of Black Jack Daniels, gotten pretty heavily hammered and now I was going through one of the worst hangovers ever. Still, it was, in a way, worth it. I knew more about Kirk in those five hours than I ever thought was in the realm of possibility. And I had to admit: he would make a pretty bang up pirate. He was cunning, intuitive, suspicious, resourceful, aggressive, a consummate actor, and quite charismatic with women **[A/N For proof of this, see episodes: Corbomite Maneuver, Balance of Terror, Conscious of the King, Arena, Obsession, I Mudd, Piece of the Action, Patterns of Force, Mirror Mirror, Enterprise Incident, and any episode that has someone wearing a skirt and makeup…except Scotty. I do not own these episodes either** And all this I found out without having to reveal anything about myself beyond what Saul had done while he was on the Assurance, because I had to admit: I was impressed with this guy. He walked a fine line between being a law-abiding captain and a roguish pirate and blended those extremes into a potent success rate, which was probably the only thing keeping him out of a Fed prison.

But to learn this, I had to get drunk. And now I had to lead a freck-krething meeting with a headache the size of the Alpha Quadrant. Ugg. This was NOT going to be a very good day, and the majority of my crew was making matters worse.

"Geez, boss, you look like something a barn cat coughs up in the middle of the night."

"Thanks, Duo, I really needed that vivid picture first thing in the morning and would you please talk in a normal voice…no, on second thought, just don't talk at all." I sank slowly into my seat with my head in my hands and tried not to hear the noise as the group began arriving.

"Here."

"Ahh. Doc. Too loud." I winced as Carpenter put a glass of cold red something in my hand. I turned as the door to the conference room opened again to admit Kirk, who half froze in a wince. The Doctor followed my gaze and sighed.

"Just how much whiskey did you two down last night?"

"Enough," I whispered hoarsely. Carpenter stalked over to the replicator that sat in the corner and produced another glass of red goo, which he handed to Kirk.

"Here, this'll cure what ails you. Just don't ask what's in it." Saul and McCoy waltzed in a second later, both of them looking entirely too bright and chipper for my mood right now. The Fed doctor stopped, stared at Kirk, and cussed slightly.

"Lawd, Jim, what the hell'd'ju do?" I have never heard a Southern accent that thick before, but it was kind of nice. More like listening to molasses dripping into a well than the buck-shot-on-a-tin-roof-slash-fingernails-on-a-chalkboard voices everyone else was using.

"Please, Bones not now," Kirk half growled as he gulped at the red stuff, half gagged, and looked like he was going to puke.

"Y'all right?" McCoy looked ready to whip out his tricorder and give him a physical then and there, when Kirk couged.

"I think—I think I just drank…tar."

"Yeah, and you better finish it off if you want any relief," Carpenter commented from his seat.

"What is that stuff?" McCoy demanded.

"Very old family recipe that I got from a very old family back in the Bronx. I have no idea how it works, but it is the best weapon I've ever come across for helping people ease through the after effects of intense alcohol consumption." McCoy looked impressed as he sat down next to Carpenter.

"Wouldn't mind getting' a hold of that, myself, if your willin' to share." I put my head back in my hands. Doctors. You get two of them together and they start plotting to save the world. Which wouldn't be all that bad if they would speak standard while doing it. I never had a head for learning new languages, and trying to decipher medical lingo was nigh on impossible when I wasn't half drunk. Fortunately, Pilot and Gunner popped into the room to finish off the team and I could get the party started.

"Alright. Alright. Everybody simmer down." I waited for silence before proceeding. "Okay. In case you all haven't realized, I have a hangover. This will change our little meeting in three ways. First, people who raise their voices above 20 decibels will be shot immediately. No exceptions. Second, I have no capacity for rational thought at the moment, so there will be nothing of vital importance discussed. Third, this meeting will last a maximum of five minutes, which is just long enough for me to give some instructions.

"If we're going to pull this heist off, we'll be needing a combination of every underhanded skill we've ever had. This means pick-pocketing, impersonations, forgery, hacking, viruses both electronic and biological, knockouts, theft, chaos, kidnapping, lying, cheating, bombing and possibly murder, though I don't want it to come to that." I looked around at my people and then carefully at the Feds. Kirk was staring at me with an impassive face, whether from the hangover or from his pirate-like inner characteristics, I don't know. Saul was stone-faced as always, but I knew that he would do what was necessary to get the job done because he saw the logic behind the balance of power. McCoy looked seriously PO-ed at what I was asking them to do but, saints be praised, held his tongue. He obviously thought I was serious about the 20 decibels rule.

I breathed and then continued. "We're going to need everyone here to do at least two jobs, possibly more, to get in there and then get out safely. I'm going to assign everyone a set of obstacles that are in that person's area of expertise. Figure out how to pull that area off with no more than a five-percent margin for error. I need listed the specific details of your plan, what equipment you will need, people you will need, how much time it will take and then rank how soon we need to do that part. We'll meet back here tomorrow and start piecing this together. Feel free to collaborate. Okay?" Heads nodded. "Alright. André, would you pass out the list, please?"

DXVJKE

I cannot remember much after that due to my who-the-kreth-gave-that-gorilla-a-sledge-hammer-and-how-did-it-get-in-my-skull-?-headache. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to do much thinking over plots. When it came to heists of this scale, I went more over damage control on site rather than doing all the planning beforehand. Twenty-four hours passed with me nursing a wounded arm and wounded head and trying to piece together what I had said during the morning meeting and before I knew it, the deadline had come.

I strode into the conference room to see that the majority of people there had fulfilled their assignments, at least all the assignments that could be pre-planned. There were always a few thousand details that couldn't be hammered out except once we were in the full swing of the heist. And that is what made this business so difficult. Anyone who went into the confidence scheme had to be able to think on their feet, change plans at a hat drop, and slug through mud while coming out like roses. It was going to be interesting watching the Feds for this little job.

"Alright, settle down," I sang out once I realized I was the last one there. "We're going to try and do this in some semblance of order. We'll go down the list André handed out yesterday and listen to each general plan. Once everyone's ideas are out, we'll start piecing them together. Right? Good. We'll start with the turbo lift to get down to the vault."

"That would be me, ma'am," Hannah said quietly.

"Right, whacha got?"

"Not much. Getting though the lift's doors on the topside should be easy enough if we were able to lift a copy of the code that opens the doors. After that, however, there is nothing I could do, save hacking through the entire security system, which would take hours and might not even work, to get the lift to move."

"Suggestions?"

"Yes, actually." She touched a button on his console and brought up a picture on the wall screen. "This is the turbo lift itself and the surrounding shaft. Here, on the shaft's wall, is a small access panel that leads to a ventilation duct, which in turn is connected to a far less guarded turbo lift. If we were to get into _that_ lift, move through the access panel on the secondary lift, and then through the vent, we would be in the turbo shaft with little to no hassle."

"Oh, yeah, great, Hannah," Duo growled from across the table, "Just make my job all the more necessary."

"I take it that you got the actual shaft?" I asked, looking at my fuming engineer.

"Yeah, and there's nothing save a phase-shift-inducer or divine intervention that's gonna get us down that shaft without being street-pizza."

"That bad?" Kirk asked with a grim smile.

"Worse. Like I said on day one, this place is worth drooling over. Too many damn sensors; there's no way to outwit all of them all the time for the three-hundred-foot drop it takes to go down that far. No way on God's Green Earth we're getting through that thing. 'Snot gonna happen, boss," Duo ended shaking his braided head with frustration.

"But all the sensors," McCoy said, pressing in with the stubbornness of a man who does not like machines, "All the sensors, phasers, an' all that, they're all electronic, right?"

"Of course. Why?"

"Well, why not just cut the power that runs them?" Duo looked up in absolute shock.

"Cut the—? Are you off your rocker, doc? The power plant for the Stellionate is deeply rooted into the rest of the planet's source: their frecking moon. And there is no way to cut the power on a MOON! It can't be done!"

"Why not?" McCoy demanded.

"Well for starters: there's no atmosphere. The entire plant is machine operated; no living thing has been up there since the krething thing was built. Second, the moon has a triple layer of shielding surrounding it, shields which are powered by the moon itself, so nothing can get through _to _the moon. Third, the moon's internal power source is a cold fusion reactor: self-perpetuating energy, you can't stop it. Fourth, even if, by some miracle, you could stop a cold fusion reaction, the entire planet would be without power and you would have some three thousand armed guards breathing down your neck before you could say bobsurunkle. You can't cut power from the moon."

"Out of curiosity," Saul asked after this long-winded rant had finally blown by, "How is the power transmitted from the reactor to the planet?"

"Continuous data streaming," Duo answered simply.

"And that means…?" McCoy prompted.

"The energy is collected and focused into an electronic impulse that runs on the same basic principles as sub-space communication, Doctor," Saul translated. "The impulse is the picked up by data arrays on the planet's surface and the impulses are translated from sub to regular space. It is quite a simple matter." McCoy gave Saul a death glare that rivaled ones I've gotten out of Klingons. The doctor looked like he was about to challenge Saul, when Kirk jumped in with the fervor that only comes from lots of practice.

"The energy is relayed over a sub-space signal?"

"That is correct, Captain," Saul replied.

"Then what would happen if we disrupt the data arrays that collect the energy?" Duo perked up abruptly with a look of stunned revelation plastered across his face.

"Damn. Why the kreth didn't I think of that?"

"Would it work?" I demanded.

"Might, boss. I'd have to crunch some major numbers to try and get the logistics of it all but…it's as good a shot as any." I nodded.

"Get to work on it as soon as we're done. I'm gonna need your input in the rest of the matter."

"Good. Next: the ante-chamber."

"I have that," Katra said. "I had originally designed a rather ridiculous system to try and hack through each of the deterrents, however, if we were able to bring the power down, it would make getting across the chamber a great deal easier."

"Sounds good, but keep your back-up plan just in case." Katra nodded and I continued. "The vault door?"

"The door," Saul said looking briefly at the PADD in front of him, "Is only considered impenetrable from a strictly structural point of view. The retina and DNA scans and the voice activation code locks quickly picked if one knows how." He looked pointedly at my com officer before continuing: "And as I remember that hacking _is_ your forte, Hannah, the vault door will not be an obstacle." I nodded.

"Right, then what about the actual vault?" Pilot and Gunner shot their heads up at the mention of their target.

"Piece of cake, Ma'am," Pilot started.

"Yeah, if you have a trained Navy SEAL extraction team," Gunner cut in. This was starting to look ugly rather quickly and the last thing I needed was a sibling fight that would bring in help from all quarters and devolve into a putty war. So I decided on a preemptive strike and hurled two rather good sized chunks of electric purple silly putty at them followed by a glare that could crack diamonds.

"Hold it right there." Both of them froze and didn't even attempt to remove the purple goo that was currently sticking to their faces. "I don't want any bickering. Gunner, if you have no constructive comments then you can shut the freck up. Pilot, this is not a James Bond movie and much as I would like to have Q, I don't, so please keep your strategies in the realm of what is possible." I saw Saul cock and eyebrow out of the corner of my eye and whirled on him. "And if you say one word about the realm of statistical possibilities, you get a purple facemask too, capice?" The eyebrow was joined by its brother but their bearer didn't say anything. I heard a snort come out of McCoy but chose to file it away for further inquiry. "Okay. Now. What's the plan for the vault?"

Pilot cleared her throat softly: "Well, ma'am…the floor's going to be the biggest problem. Everything else can be bypassed or taken out, but the floor's electrified an' there's no way to get around it."

"And?"

"Well, we have basically two plans to get through," Gunner picked up as he carefully pulled bits of putty out of his hair. "Plan A has five people taking out the guards and cameras with sniper rifles; two grappling lines are strung low across the floor to the combination safe and—"

"Tightropes?" I demanded.

"Yeah."

"What's plan B?"

"Well, that's where the Navy SEAL's would come in handy," Pilot said. "We have to get over the floor somehow. Either we use a tightrope or we climb across the walls."

"Climb. Across. The…Walls?" Suddenly my hangover had come back.

"It is possible, ma'am."

"Wouldn't it be easier just to turn the floor off like the turbo shaft?" McCoy asked.

"Not that easy," Duo said. "We'd have to turn the power back on to hack the vault door open and severing a data-stream isn't like turning a lightswitch on and off. We'd get maybe one chance to turn it off and then on again before the security system severs our connection."

"So we go Spider-Man," I growled exasperated.

"Spider Man?" Kirk turned to me with confusion on his face.

"You were born on Earth and you have no idea who Spider-Man is?" Gunner asked in absolute shock.

"Later," I snapped. "Pilot, you got any way for us to climb across walls?"

"Yes, ma'am. We put electromagnets in our gloves and shoes. The entire vault is made up of conductive metal, we just climb across it." I looked over at my engineer and tech specialist.

"Feasible?"

"Actually…yes," Katra answered. "It wouldn't be too hard to rig a pressure sensor in the gear that would activate and deactivate the magnetic current. It'll take a day or so to work out the logistics of it, but it is quite feasible." Pilot grinned in triumph.

"Okay then. Hannah, I trust you can open the combination safe?"

"They've yet to make a code that can crack me, Major," came the confident reply.

"Right, leave your plans on the table and we'll break until evening. Duo, do a quick write up for me on what severing the data stream would take." He nodded in reply. "Good. See you in a bit." The group began to disperse and I overheard Gunner say something about "greatest comic book collection in the known universe" to Kirk as I sat rolling balls of putty on the table. Putting this together was going to be duce hard and for the umpteenth time I wondered why I was doing this. The answer sat staring at me across the table.

"I would tell you the odds of success for this mission, but I remember you saying once you hated hearing the odds." I half laughed and squished the little balls back into their plastic eggs.

"If I wanted to spend my life hearing about the chances of my success I would become either a bookie or a xenophobe. What's on your mind, Saul?"

"Curiosity."

"Bout what?"

"How you piece together all this," he gestured to the small pile of data disks and PADDs on the table, "Into a workable plan that will beat the odds."

"Oh, well, that's simple. I don't."

"You don't what?"

"Piece it together. This isn't a puzzle that I can just fit every little detail into its perfect little slot. This is more like throwing all the ingredients of Thanksgiving dinner into a blender, hitting frappe, and hoping a turkey and mashed potatoes will come out."

"That is illogical," he said almost automatically and I barked out a laugh.

"Kreth, it's good to hear that again." The eyebrow cocked. "Sorry, it's just that…life just hasn't been the same since you left the Assurance."

"I understand." Silence fell across the room for a few good minutes before I sighed just the hear something.

"You're really not leaving until you see how I do things are you?"

"I believe I stated that intention earlier." I half smiled and shook my head. He had a stubborn streak a light-year wide and it was showing.

"Well, Saul, if you want to stick around and watch, I'm gonna put you to work."

"Those are acceptable parameters, Analise."

"Good. Toss me one of those disks, will ya?"

DXVJKE

By the time André came in to check on me, the conference room had undergone a radical transformation. Every one of the data screens had at least three different parts of the Stellionate up on it and all the wall space, most of the table, and even parts of the floor were covered in black dry-write marker. Coffee cups, tea cups, PADDs, used markers, styluses, data disks, putty eggs, balls, snakes and blobs littered the floor, the rest of the table, all the shelves and the chairs. Saul and I were standing in the middle of the room staring at a PADD he was holding. André didn't actually step in the door but stood and stared at us in a curious fashion until I commented.

"I thought I had locked that door."

"You did," came the giant's reply.

"And you broke in because…?"

"The meeting is now two hours overdue." I snapped my eyes up the chronometer and cussed softly. "We were worried something happened to you, Major." I massaged the bridge of my nose before replying.

"I think it would be best if everyone just called it a day, André. We're not exactly done yet." The Titan nodded and exited.

DXVJKE

"**Well, are they okay?" McCoy demanded as André's bulk came into view just down the corridor. **

"**Yes," was the only answer he got. McCoy and Kirk exchanged glances and were about to ask for more information when the Titan continued. "The Major is still working. She says we'll meet tomorrow morning." The rest of the team, who had been waiting patiently for the last two hours, immediately began to disperse. Kirk, however, walked up to André.**

"**Isn't she going to sleep?" The stone-like face seemed to draw in confusion at the question and André didn't reply for a moment. Kirk got the distinct feeling that he was being sized up by the Assurance's first officer and the intensity of it was rather unsettling. **

"**The Major is not confined by the necessity of sleep. If she sees the need to work, she will work. And there is no force conceivable that will make her do otherwise. You would be surprised at how single minded a person Major Harper is, Captain. Now, if you will excuse me, I am needed on the Bridge." Kirk paused and then turned towards the transporters. **

"**Come on, Bones, we should get back to the Enterprise."**

"**But what about Spock?" The doctor demanded. "I don't feel too comfortable leaving him here." Kirk chuckled softly. **

"**Don't worry. I think that if there's one place in the universe where Spock is truly safe, it's here on this ship." **

"**And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" They passed through the doors to the transporter room. The crewman stationed there looked up and let the ghost of a smile pass his face to show recognition. **

"**Back to the Enterprise?" he asked. **

"**Yes, thank you," Kirk replied, temporality ignoring the doctor's question. They stepped on the pad and let the swirl of light and energy pull them across the vast expanse of space that bridged the two ships. Mr. Kyle's familiar face materialized before them as the captain and doctor strode confidently into their home turf. **

"**Well, Jim?" McCoy pressed.**

"**Spock was on the Assurance for nearly four months, which is time enough for their crew to practically adopt him. Harper holds him in high regard and has an…undeniable sense of…loyalty, I guess, to him. I have a feeling she'd go to the brink of hell for him, and certainly send anyone there who tried to hurt him." They were now in the privacy of Kirk's quarters and a brief silence descended when McCoy spoke up. **

"**Do you think she loves him?" Kirk looked sharply over at the doctor.**

"**You mean, like, romantically?" McCoy grunted an affirmation, and Kirk began to digest this idea. "No. No, I don't think she does."**

"**Hmm… good."**

"**Good?"**

"**I don't like her, Jim. I didn't like her when I first met her and I like her even less now." Kirk found this odd that the usual genteel philanthropic doctor would be so viciously set against anyone. **

"**Why?" he queried.**

"**She's a Romulan," was the snapped response. **

**Kirk sat forward sharply: "What?"**

"**She's Romulan, Jim. As in Romulan Neutral Zone, Romulan Ale, Romulan war—"**

"**I get the picture. But are you sure, Bones?"**

"**Remember when they demonstrated the taggers? Well, when I was scanning the other crewmembers, my scanner ran across her as well and picked up her bio-signs. I cross-checked what I got against the Enterprise's computer. So yes, I'm sure." **

"**But the taggers—"**

"**Wasn't holding one."**

"**She looks so human…"**

"**Bah! Appearances can be changed with simple surgery, you know that." **

"**So that's why you don't like her? Because of her race?"**

"**Race has nothin' to do with it, Jim. It's the fact that she's covering it up. I know for a fact that Romulans go into piracy all the time. Why would she take a human name and human features? Why the disguise? And now we're going deep into Romulan territory—"**

"**And I seriously doubt that she's going to turn us over to the Romulans," Kirk returned. "She didn't orchestrate this, you know."**

"**But it's a pretty big opportunity for her." **

"**I'm sorry, Bones, I just can't accept that," Kirk said, shaking his head in a combination of disapproval and disbelief. "Harper's not that kind of person."**

"**And what makes you so sure of that?" The doctor pressed. **

"**She told me some of the things that Assurance did while Spock was onboard. Most of them were **_**against**_** the Romulan Empire. I can't see her having the kind of affiliation that steals with one hand and gives with the other. She's a pirate, yeah, but she's not two-faced." McCoy gave a half growl. **

"**And how do you know that?"**

"**Getting drunk with someone does have its advantages." Kirk paused. "We'll keep an eye on her, and if there's anything suspicious, well…I can pilot both a Zeto and J'tak."**

"**Hrmph. That's a start but it doesn't help the fact that Spock is still over there with her now."**

"**And I still hold that she wouldn't let anything happen to him."**

"**Why?" McCoy demanded viciously. "She obviously has no qualms about murder, kidnapping, rampant destruction, or biological warfare. Why are you so sure she won't hurt Spock or you or anyone else? Where does your confidence come from?" Kirk didn't say anything. The conversation he had with Harper in the gym kept echoing in his head and agreeing with McCoy. Guidelines, rules, piracy, refusing to lose, and then drinking with her later, it all lined up with what the doctor was saying, and he couldn't think of anything to say. What if Harper really **_**was**_** going to double-cross them? **

"**I don't know, Bones," he finally said, sinking his head into his hands. "But there's…there's something between them. I can't describe it, but it's like…Spock trusts her. And I trust him. And until there is absolute, undeniable proof that she is going to betray us, I won't change our plans." McCoy glared at Kirk in response, but didn't say anything. "She didn't have to take this mission, you know. The fact that she did says something."**

"**Yeah? What?" Kirk looked out across the starfield and didn't answer.**

DXVJKE

Alpha shift came to find the team back in the same conference room, now, mostly, cleaned up from the torture that Saul and I put it through. The random marks, scribbles and notes that had last night littered the room were now organized onto one single data-disk, where they made actual sense, instead of looking like the deluded ravings of a schizophrenic member of an insane asylum. At any rate, the crew had no trace of how crazy I was, except for André and Saul, both of whom I knew would never call out the men in white coats on me. At any rate, the team was assembled to take the various positions that Saul and I had worked out.

"Sorry about last night, people," I began. "We had some…pretty intense think-tanking and I really wanted to hand you the finished product, rather than some slap-dashed monstrosity that would get us all killed." Not that my crew would mind. We've gone into worse situations on nothing but a wing and a prayer and half an outline of a plan. But still, this was a little more delicate for such haphazardness. We had to get in and out of the Stellionate with no knowing that we were the thieves or else the galaxy would go to war. And regardless of what I had told McCoy, I did, in fact, care as to whether there was war for the simple reason that war meant tightened security and security meant pirates holding up "will steal for food" signs. Therefore, this had to work, and it had to work well.

"So, to business. We're going to be passing out the castlist of who's doing what, before I go into what, specifically, we're going to do." I looked over the group of stone-set faces. My guys would go to hell and back for me, and though I didn't have such confidence in two-thirds of the Feds, I was willing to trust them to the same degree.

"André, we already know that you can't be in on this. Cosmetic surgery, as wonderful as it is, can't cover for the fact that you're seven feet tall and built like one of the lineman from Green Bay. So, in his absence, Carpenter, you're team dog. Duo and Katra, you're going to be doing combinations of turns and hackslash to get us control of their computers and power supply. Bek'h, cat duty. Hannah you're now on lifter, hackslash, and cat duty. I'm going to fly the lowball position. Pilot and Gunner are going to be our yeagers and CT's. Also, Pilot you're now a cat and Gunner I've got you down for lifter and barney. Saul's gonna be CT hackslash. Dr. McCoy you're CT during the sting and keep up appearances throughout. And, James, you get the highball position. Okay?"

"That's fine," Kirk commented, "But I have no idea what you just said." I looked at him askance.

"You don't know what a highball is?"

"No."

I inhaled deeply: "Great. Well then, we should run you through grifter slang 101."

"That would be helpful."

DXVJKE

Yeah, so that was a long chapter that did practically nothing. Oh well. Points to whomever can name the movie that the red-hangover-curing-tar-tasting-goo that Carpenter gives to Kirk and Keath (Oh, and Kirk's line did come from that movie, so it should be easy for you).   
Now, according to the stats on my page, some 900 people have read the first two chapters of Crimson. So, my question is, **_WHY HAS ONLY ONE PERSON REVIEWED??!!!!???? _**HMM? I want reviews, people. I know that you're out there and you're reading this and you know who you are. I don't care if it's only one line telling me that this sucks and I should stop writing. JUST WRITE **_SOMETHING!_** Okay? Okay. Good. Right. Rant's over. And major kudos to the Tin Foil Man, who faithfully reviews my work. You so totally rock, dude! Later,  
DarkX


End file.
